Final Reflections: What Is Vietnam?
What is Vietnam, really? A long, S-shaped country on the map of Asia? That description alone says very little. A rising economic star? Perhaps — but when you begin with so little, rapid growth is almost inevitable. A cheap travel destination? I would like to think it is more than that. A country shaped by a heavy and turbulent history? Without question.
If Cuba once felt to me like a prince dressed in a poor man’s clothes, then Vietnam is something different.
Vietnam is like the elderly woman selling bottled soy milk on a street corner in central Hanoi. She has lived through emperors and socialism, and now she has adapted to capitalism, enthusiastically marketing her humble product. Out of curiosity — and perhaps a touch of compassion — you buy a bottle. You taste it, and it isn’t quite what you expected. Then again, you didn’t really know what to expect in the first place. She didn’t even manage to explain that it was soy milk. What remains is the quiet satisfaction of trying something new and supporting her. The flavor is unusual, distinctive — but you might be willing to try it again.
That is Vietnam. Not instantly understandable. Not always what you anticipate. But memorable, layered, and worth another encounter.
There are places I would gladly return to. Ha Long Bay and Cat Ba Island, with their lush green limestone cliffs rising dramatically from the water, are truly unique. I could easily spend more time there. Perhaps one day I will return. Until then, I will let the country continue to evolve and change. I find myself wondering whether the communist government will endure in the winds of transformation, or whether those same winds will eventually sweep it away.
One moment remains particularly telling. I asked Bella — while propaganda messages echoed all day from loudspeakers in the courtyard of the grand government building in her hometown — “Do you like the current government?” Sitting in a small restaurant surrounded by others, she shook her head firmly but did not say a word. The silence said enough.
I want to believe that every dictatorship eventually reaches its end. And so, half symbolically and half sincerely, I find myself saying: “Good-bye, Ho Chi Minh.”
On our final morning, we stumbled into a small restaurant where the owner serenaded us with karaoke and even encouraged me to sing “Yesterday.” It felt like a fittingly human and slightly absurd closing note to the journey.
Over the course of traveling from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, we covered approximately 2,100 kilometers by bus and train. But the real distance traveled was something less measurable — through history, ideology, landscapes, and lives.
Vietnam is not easily defined. But it stays with you.
Comments